


To The End of The Earth

by Crumpets



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Boat sex but with my preferred couple, F/M, Fix-It, Gendrya - Freeform, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I couldn't stand to see Gendrya apart in the finale, I have shipped them since Harrenhal, I needed to write this to cope with the finale, Long-time reader first-time poster, No way could I let them leave things like that, Of course the first thing I'd post would be smut, One Shot, Please be gentle with me, Post 8x06, Smut, This is my first fic so forgive these rambling tags please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 21:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crumpets/pseuds/Crumpets
Summary: Arya is ready to leave Westeros behind to sail toward completely new adventures, but is her past ready to let her go?





	To The End of The Earth

**Author's Note:**

> As soon as I saw Arya's final scene in that less than satisfying finale, I thought "I don't care what D&D say, there is no way Gendry is not on that ship." So I decided to headcanon something for my favorite couple. And then I decided to write it down. And then I decided to post it here. This is my very first fic I've ever completed and wanted to share so, please, be gentle with me.

Arya Stark stands at the bow of her ship, its sails emblazoned with the direwolf sigil of her House, Westeros and all the people she's ever known behind her and the unknown lands west of Westeros in front of her. There is so much to explore out there beyond the sea, so much to discover, so much to do.

As they often do, her hands find their way to her two most prized possessions, the formidable weapons at either hip. On the one side is Needle, the trusty sword Jon had given her so many years ago along with his cheeky advice to "stick 'em with the pointy end." Finding Needle during her travels had been surreal; the odds of happening across the lowlife who had stolen it from her were so slim, Arya had sometimes thought the blade must be destined to be with her always. That feeling was part of the reason she chose to keep it hidden in Braavos rather than forsake it with the rest of her identity during her training to become No One. In the end, she couldn't let go of the part of herself that loved her brother for understanding who she was and who she wanted to be. She doesn't know what she would have done without it, this extension to her arm that has exacted justice and vengeance so many times over.

At her other hip rests the exquisite Valarian steel dagger she used to snatch all of mankind back from the icy grip of death itself--or so the bards have been singing in all their songs lately. Arya just did what she had been training to do all along and stuck the horned bastard who was trying to kill her little brother with the pointy end.

Arya steps away from the bow. She doesn't like thinking about that night. No, that's not true. She doesn't like thinking about the army of the dead closing in, snuffing light and lives out, and just how close the living came to losing the battle. But the night wasn't a total loss. It had its moments. She smirks to herself, remembering the hours preceding the battle, remembering climbing on top of a young man with eyes blue like the sea before her, remembering the feeling of his firm, warm body beneath her, within her. Her skin seems to tingle at the memory of his beard brushing against her lips and breasts and the memory of his calloused hands running up and down her back and along her sides, guiding her movements gently, but never trying to overpower her. And then there was the way they both shook when they both released that maddening tension that had been building inside themselves, how his face had screwed up in pained pleasure and then how his heavy-lidded eyes had swept over her afterwards, equal parts appreciation and adoration. Or maybe it was just the sea breeze that was causing those goosebumps.

Was it selfish of her to do that to him? To use the connection of their past to convince him to let her take her pleasure from him without any hope of a future for the two of them? She doesn't think so. After all, when she bedded him, she didn't think they'd survive the night. Then after his proposal--she shudders at the word--she had been certain she'd die in her attempt to kill Cersei. It wasn't until Sandor Clegane shouted some sense into her that she even considered living to be an option available to her.

She strides along the deck, surefooted even as the ship rolls beneath her feet. When Sandor advised her to choose life, surely this is what he meant--traveling the world alone. This is what he had done, or what he would have done if not for her, anyway. He couldn't have meant for her to get married and settle down and be the lady of some keep to a jumped up bastard blacksmith who doesn't even want to be a lord himself. And even if he did--what's it matter? The Hound is dead. She's alive and she's made her choice.

She walks down the stairs to the door of her cabin. Who knows where Gendry Waters--no, Baratheon--even is now anyway. He could still be in King's Landing. He could already be in his new castle, Storm's End.

She turns the knob and pushes opens the door. He could be--leaning up against her desk, waiting for her to walk in.

"Now don't be mad--" he says, holding both his hands up in a gesture akin to surrender.

"Gendry--" she responds warningly.

"Please, Arya, let me explain," he says.

Arya turns from him. His shoulders slump in defeat. She shuts the door and whirls back around, hand on Needle's pommel once more, steely glint in her eye.

"Well?" she prods, cocking an eyebrow. "Explain, Lord Baratheon."

She crosses the room and then bypasses him to sit in the chair behind her desk. He quickly pushes off from where he'd been leaning and turns to face her. She gestures to the chair in front of her and he sits, slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. She sighs and steeples her fingers together.

"Well, that's just it," Gendry begins at last. "I'm not Lord Baratheon anymore."

"What d'you mean?"

"I gave it up," he says with a great exhale, breath whooshing out of him. "I'm not cut out to be anybody's lord. I never wanted to be. And she--the dragon queen--she wasn't doing what she did out of the kindness of her heart. She was using me to make herself look good. Didn't give a damn what I wanted."

"And? What's so wrong with that?" Arya asks him, no emotion in her words at all.

"What's wrong with it is," he answers, more earnestly, almost as though he's trying to emote enough for the both of them, "all I ever wanted was a family. I didn't want land or a castle or a title or any of that. I wanted to belong with someone. Like you did. When you belonged with the Starks."

"'When I _belonged_?' I'm still a Stark, Gendry," Arya answers. "I will always be a Stark."

"Yeah, no--I didn't mean--" Gendry splutters. He takes a breath and Arya smirks at him. Once he composes himself, he starts again. "What I meant was," he says, much steadier now, "you've always had a family. You'll always have a place that you and your family call home--even if you never go back to Winterfell as long as you live. That place, those people, that was a place you belonged."

"But I don't belong there anymore," Arya says, quietly but matter of factly.

"No, you don't. You've made a new path," Gendry answers.

"That doesn't explain why you're on my ship, Gendry," she says. She leans back in her chair and looks him up and down.

Gendry meets her gaze and leans forward. "You had a home and a family, but you changed so you made the choice to leave," he says.

She nods once in agreement.

"I never really had either of those things. Then I was given a place of my own overnight," Gendry continues. "I could have started my life over there if I wanted. Figured out how to rule fairly. Do...whatever it is lords do. But--"

"What?"

Gendry takes a breath to steel himself. "The closest I ever felt to being at home was when I was with you. The only person, aside from my mum, who I ever felt was my family was you. I don't belong in Storm's End. The place means nothing to me. You are my family. You are my home. I belong here, with you, wherever it is you're going," he declares.

Arya stares at him, her face giving away nothing. Gendry feels like his heart might beat out of his chest. He wants to look away, but he knows he cannot. Finally, she speaks.

"We've been through this. You know I can't give you what you want," she answers softly. "I can't be what you want."

"Yes, you can," he says.

"No, I can't. You want a wife, a lady--"

"No! I don't want any of that! I only want you! You, exactly as you are--whatever you want to be!"

"But you _proposed_ to me," she says, distaste saturating the word.

"Only because I thought that was the only way I could be with you," he fires back. "I was being stupid. What else is new?"

She laughs at that, actually laughs and it warms him to hear it, to see it. When she'd smile before, back when they were on the road together, it had been infectious. That hadn't changed, but now the scarcity of her smiles, her laughter, meant that each one was all the more precious.

"Stupid me," he says, hoping to keep it going, "I didn't realize they'd let the slayer of the Night King and Bringer of the Dawn do whatever the hell she wanted and piss off to the edge of the bloody world."

It has the desired effect and she lets out an actual snort.

"And who did you think was going to stop me?" she says, the playfulness in her voice making him grin.

"Like I said, stupid," he says with a chuckle. "There's no one in the world who could stop you, Arya Stark."

They both turn serious.

"So you don't want me to be your lady anymore?" she asks.

"Well, you'll always be m'lady," he says, his tone teasing as he reminds her of their shared joke, "but you can't be my lady because I'm not a lord anymore."

He shrugs. No loss there.

"You just want to...travel with me?" she asks.

"I want to be with you," he answers with a nod. "If you'll have me."

She pauses, considering him. Then she gets a wicked glint in her eye and a truly devilish smirk creeps onto her face. "Have you or _have you_?" she asks with what can only be described as a leer.

Gendry's face burns, but he perseveres. "I'm at your service, m'lady, in any way you desire," he says, somewhat choking out the last bit.

Now Arya can't back down. She gets up from her chair and comes around to the front of the desk, leaning where Gendry had been when she walked into the room. This also means, however, that she's standing directly in front of Gendry now. He looks up at her, not daring to hope, trying not to let anticipation show on his face, trying not to do anything that might stop whatever is happening from happening.

Then she leans forward, grabs both arms of his chair in either hand, and pulls him towards her. She ends up standing in between his legs, resting against the desk once more. The funny thing is that she's sort of trapped them both, the desk and chair caging them together, yet he knows if he were to stand and try to overpower her, she'd incapacitate him with ease.

"The last time I _had you_ ," she says, her voice soft and smooth and dangerous, "I saved all of mankind a few hours later."

"Are you suggesting there's a connection between the two?" he asks, with a small laugh. "You honor me."

Arya leans forward once more and places her hands on Gendry's shoulders this time.

"Don't be stupid, both you and I know you don't have a magic cock," she says, smirking.

"No," he agrees, "if the rumors are true, that would be Podrick."

Her eyebrows shoot up at that.

"Oh, come on, surely you heard the maids around Winterfell talking. Well, I guess they're not maids by the time Pod's through with them," Gendry elaborates.

"Didn't really have much time for that sort of gossip, did I?" Arya asks him.

He shrugs, still aware of her hands on him.

"Well, I've got time now. Pray tell me what news of Podrick's magic cock," she says cheekily. Then she perches herself on Gendry's lap.

Gendry swallows thickly. Arya's eyes follow the bob of his throat, up and down.

"I overheard some of the ladies he'd--been with--say that he could...please several of them in a single night. Several times. They say his very first time," Gendry flushes red, but he'll do anything to keep Arya sitting in his lap and apparently she wants to hear this based on the way she's hanging on his every word, "he managed to please three whores so much that they refused to take Tyrion Lannister's gold for their time."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Whores don't give it away for free. That's the whole point of them," she says, her skepticism plain in her tone.

Gendry nods.

"What on earth did he do them?" she asks. He would laugh at the confusion furrowing her brow if it weren't for the fact that she's on his lap and he can barely keep his head on straight.

"Well, remember when we--" he raises his eyebrows suggestively and she nods impatiently for him to continue, " _that_ , several times over. And in a lot more-- _ways_ , I'd wager."

Her eyes narrow. "What d'you mean?"

He barely contains his groan of frustration. Which of the gods had he so offended that he'd ended up with Arya Stark sitting in his lap interrogating him about Podrick Payne's bedding prowess? He's also surprised that, worldly as she is, she even needs him to explain this to her at all. He hopes he's up to the task.

"You remember how you and I...coupled together the one time, and you were," he swallows and bites the inside of his cheek, trying to will himself not to harden at the memory, "on top of me?" _Almost like this_ , he thinks to himself.

"Of course," she answers.

"Well, there are lots of different--ways to do it," he says.

"'Ways?' What d'you mean?" she repeats.

"Like--positions," he can't look at her anymore. He's just got to get through this without making a complete fool of himself.

"Go on," she orders. "What positions?"

He can't contain the groan any longer. "Arya, you're really gonna make me say this?"

"Yes," she answers. "What positions?"

He puts his hands in his lap and shifts in the chair. "Why me?" he mutters to himself.

"If not you, who?" she replies, even though he wasn't asking her. "Now get on with it."

"Fine," he says, resignedly. "The man could be on top or behind, or they could be side by side. He could use his mouth on her, or fingers. She could do the same to him," Gendry says. He keeps his eyes off her the entire time and tries not to imagine himself doing those things with the woman before him now.

"And when you said 'several times over'...?" she whispers.

The change in her voice breaks his resolve and he looks at her. She's red-faced and wearing a familiar expression. The same one he saw when she ordered him to take his own bloody pants off. Desire.

Now he's hard and breathing heavier than he'd like to be. But he can't help it when she looks at him like that. She gives his shoulders a squeeze to prompt him to respond.

He clears his throat. "Some men can make women--peak--more than once," Gendry finally explains.

"Have you ever?"

"No," he says with a laugh. "Not enough practice."

"And what about the--positions? Do you know those from firsthand experience?" she inquires.

He shakes his head. "Only a couple of them. Didn't get many opportunities."

Arya nods her head once, coming to some decision.

"Right then," she says abruptly, getting off his lap and pushing his chair back. "I'm not a proper lady, but I think you're supposed to be on your knees for this bit, so get up."

Confused but unwilling to disobey, Gendry does as she bids, keeping his hands over his crotch as much as possible.

"I've decided I'm not going to throw you overboard," she begins with a smile, "but you're going to swear an oath to me here and now and I think you know what'll happen to you if you break it." Her tone is light, but he understands she is deadly serious.

"As you wish, m'lady. Just tell me what it is I'm to swear," Gendry replies.

"Swear to me that you will serve me in any capacity I choose," she begins.

"I swear it," he answers.

"That you will do what I ask, when I ask it. That you will fight alongside me, if need be. That you will trust in my judgment, but still offer me counsel even if I do not request it from you," she pauses.

"I swear it," he repeats.

Her face softens in a way it hasn't really since the night he ruined things between them with his sentimental and misguided gesture.

"That you will be my friend and my family, but you will never force me to be your lady or anything else I do not want to be," she finishes softly.

"You know it's all I ever really wanted, even when I thought it couldn't happen," he says, thinking of the girl he called Arry begging him to leave the Brotherhood to fight for her brother Robb and the tears in her eyes when he told her she wouldn't be his family. He blinks to clear his vision and looks up at her now, a self-assured woman grown, beautiful and deadly and still willing to give him the time of day. The gods must be crazy. "I swear it," he declares.

"Good," she says, satisfied with his pledge. "Now get up."

Once he stands, he feels the tension of the moment dissipate like a spell has been broken.

"Aren't you going to swear something to me?" he teases her.

"What would you have me swear?" she challenges.

"Oh, I wouldn't presume to give you an oath," he answers, "but it does seem a little one-sided, don't you think?"

She bites her lip thoughtfully.

"You're right," she says.

"I am?"

"Well, don't sound so surprised, it was bound to happen sometime," Arya laughs.

Gendry chuckles. "So what do you want to swear to me?"

"I swear--" she begins haltingly.

"Yes? Do go on," he goads her.

"Don't rush me," she says. She thinks for a moment and then her eyes brighten. "I swear to make you a better fighter."

He rolls his eyes.

"I swear to protect you and never ask you to do something I know might bring harm to you," she continues. He scoffs. She makes it sound like he's completely incapable of taking care of himself.

"I swear to listen to you," she says. _Better_ , he thinks. "And I swear--"

"Yes?"

"I swear that we're going to do all those things you mentioned earlier in bed together," she finishes, mischievously, even licking her lips.

"Arya--what--" Gendry stammers.

"If Podrick can do it, so can we. All we need is practice, you said so yourself. And you'll find there's nothing I love more than the challenge of practicing something until I get it right," she says, not a hint of insincerity in her tone.

"You want to do--all that--with me?" Gendry finally manages to ask.

"If not you, who?" Arya says once more.

Then to Gendry's immense disbelief and pleasure, Arya leans up to cup his face in her hands and presses a firm kiss to his lips. After a moment in which he concludes that he's not dreaming, he puts his hands around her waist, picks her up, and puts her on the desk so they're of a more even height and she's not craning up to reach him.

Then he tilts his head a bit and opens his mouth to let his tongue touch the seam of her lips. She allows him to deepen the kiss and they run their hands all over each other's clothes as their lips and tongues move against each other and their breathing gets heavier.

After a long while, they have to part for air and they look each other over, chests rising and falling rapidly, cheeks flushed, lips wet and slightly swollen, eyes hungry for even more.

His desire makes him bold, or maybe the lack of air, and he asks, "How do you want to have me first, m'lady?"

Arya wets her lips and Gendry is sure she can feel how hard he is where she's pressed against him.

"You said the man could be behind the woman? How does that one work?" she asks him.

Gendry holds both her hands in his and pulls her up and off the desk gently so she's standing once more, then holds her close to him and kisses just under her ear. Then he whispers, "A little like this."

He turns her so her back is pressed to his front, his cock straining against his breeches and rubbing against her perfect behind.

"Oh, that's good," she groans as she grinds back onto him. "But don't you think we're overdressed?"

They kick their boots off hurriedly. She fumbles behind her for the tie to his trousers and he reaches around in front of her to do the same for her. They each pull their own pants down, though, and then they're separated by only their smallclothes from the waist down. He cups her still-clothed breasts in his hands and squeezes. She gasps and arches back into him.

"Better?" he asks, even though he anticipates her answer.

"Not enough," she says.

Gendry turns her around so he can kiss her soundly on the mouth, only stopping when she nips his bottom lip.

"Are you certain you want to do this?" he asks.

"Seven hells," she curses, "yes I bloody well am, you absolute idiot."

"And you're ready to do this?"

"Didn't I just say I was?" she retorts impatiently.

"Aye, you did, but I meant is your body ready like mine is?" Gendry asks. Then he dips his hand into her smallclothes, cups his hand over her mound, and, to her surprise, curves his fingers down towards her entrance. Arya's body tenses like a bowstring at his touch and then relaxes slightly once he removes his hand from her smallclothes and holds his fingers up in between them both.

"See this? You're wet and slick. You're ready," Gendry says. And he brings the fingers coated with Arya's arousal to his mouth and licks them clean of it.

Arya inhales sharply. "Why'd you do that?"

Gendry shrugs. "Wanted to taste you. I'll do more than that eventually. It's on the to-do list you swore we'd complete, remember?"

Arya's cheeks flush. "And what did I taste like?" she asks boldly.

"Can't really describe it," he answers, "but you're not as salty as sweat and not as sweet as honey. You taste good, though," he adds quickly.

"Thanks," she says. They hesitate for a moment, her grey eyes locked on his blue. Then they're back to kissing each other hungrily.

Gendry turns her around again and then kisses her neck from behind her, gently at first, then adding teeth when Arya grinds back into him and he can't help it.

"Yes, yes, more," she moans. She tugs at her smallclothes, trying to work them down her body, but having difficulty. Gendry breaks away from her to give her space to do so and practically rips off his own. Arya reaches back for him and he moves forward quickly to oblige her. There's a sharp intake of breath from both of them when his cock brushes against her bare core. Arya circles her hips and Gendry rubs his cock along her slick folds.

He feels like his blood is boiling under his skin and it's taking every drop of willpower he possesses to resist thrusting into her at once. The only reason he's stopping himself is the memory of overhearing those ladies who had been with Podrick giggling amongst themselves that the longer he waited to enter, the better it had been. That had seemed counterintuitive to him at the time so it stood out. Determined to make this as good for Arya as possible, he's trying his best to hold off, distracting himself by running his hands along her breasts and the curve of waist, but it's torturous.

Just when Gendry feels like he can take this agony no longer, Arya reaches behind her and, with a frustrated huff, says "Gendry, get inside me already." Then she grasps his cock and guides him to exactly where he wants to be.

With that, he pushes her lower back so she falls forward onto the desk, grabs her hips, and pushes himself into her swiftly and completely. They both moan in pleasure.

Gendry holds himself there for a moment so she can adjust. She's so tight around him.

Arya loves the different feeling of this joining compared to their first. She can feel every inch of him inside her and even though she's not used to letting someone else have control, she knows she's safe with Gendry. There's no one else she'd do this with.

She needs more. She squeezes around his cock and feels him tighten his grip on her hips in response. "Move," she says in the most commanding tone she can manage.

He does at once, pulling out of her and then pushing back in. It seems she does have some control after all.

Gendry keeps his rhythm slow at first, then adds a bit of a swivel to his hips so there's a grinding sensation. She liked that before and seems to like it now.

"Yes, keep going," she encourages. He feels sweat coating his body and beading on his brow.

"Arya?"

"Mmm what?"

"Can I go a bit--harder? Can you take it?" he questions as he struggles to maintain his steady pace.

"Oh, Gods, yes, Gendry. Don't hold back," she says.

At once he slams his hips into her and brings them back much faster. She grunts and grabs hold of the edges of the desk, but doesn't mind the new pace at all.

The front of his thighs and the back of hers are making a rather obscene smacking sound each time they connect, but that's nothing compared to her gasps and keens.

He's breathing so heavily, he's almost panting when he feels her walls start to flutter around him.

"Gendry, Gendry, Gendry, I'm close, so close, oh please, yes," she babbles, sounding near tears and he thrusts into her again and again and again and then she tightens and stiffens and shakes and yowls like a hellcat and then he's coming undone too and says her name like a prayer while he spends inside her for what feels like forever.

They collapse onto the desk. Gendry tries not to put all his weight on her by shifting onto his side. He closes his eyes for a moment and then feels Arya's small hand on his chest, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and pulling him up from the desk and out of her. She guides him over to the chair and pushes him into it, his legs folding underneath him like a newborn deer's. Then she sits on his lap once more.

"Glad I decided to keep you around," she says, running her fingers through his dark hair.

"Glad you decided to swear to make me your kept man," he jokes.

She smiles down at him, but it's sad somehow.

"What are you thinking?" he asks her. _Please don't say you regret this_ , he thinks.

"Bran knew who Jon's parents were before Sansa and I did. When Jon was trying to decide whether to tell us, Bran told him it was his choice. So he did it and he ruined his life. He pushed his queen into madness and then he killed his love and was exiled," Arya tells him.

"What are you getting at? D'you think he should have lied to everyone for the rest of his life so things would have stayed the same?" Gendry asks, trying to understand her train of thought.

"No," she answers, "I'm saying that we all have to choose. What we're going to do. Who we're going to be. I chose this."

"And I did too," Gendry says.

"But I don't ever want you to resent me for it," Arya says. "I know you were jesting, but maybe our oaths were wrong. I don't want to force you to serve me. You have a right to choose to do whatever you wish."

Gendry looks at her thoughtfully. "You still don't get it," he tells her. "This is what I choose. I will be whatever it is you want me to be...because I am _choosing_ to be whatever you want me to be. I could never resent you, even if you sent me away. And I didn't resent you for leaving--either time."

"But why, Gendry?"

"Because you're the bravest, fiercest, greatest person I've ever known. Because I want to protect you, even though I know damn well you don't need me protecting you anymore. And because you're the only person I've ever met that can piss me off and make me laugh till my sides hurt and look at me like you see the real me. You're everything, Arya," he says. He may have gotten carried away again, he thinks, but at least he didn't propose marriage this time.

Arya doesn't say anything. That doesn't worry him like it once might have. He knows she's different now, no longer prone to blurting like she once was and he still is. She studies his face. He watches her carefully as her expression changes from calculating and assessing to one of affectionate tenderness once she determines the depth of his feelings and is assured of his complete sincerity.

Feeling like he's passed some sort of trial, he leans forward slightly, but still leaves some room between them.

"Thank you," she whispers. Then she cups his face in her hands and kisses him gently, just barely brushing her lips against his.

They rest their foreheads against each other's and just breathe for a moment.

He had tried so hard not to dream of sharing a moment like this with her again.

She never thought she could find something like this. She doesn't know what it is yet, but it feels like it might be peace.

"Gendry?"

"Yeah, Arya?"

"Want to try bedding me in a bed next time?"

He laughs. "If m'lady so chooses," he replies.

She springs to her feet and pulls off her leather jerkin and the shirt underneath. She rests her hands on her hips, waiting.

"Well? You gonna sit there all day?"

He blinks. "Now?"

She cocks an eyebrow.

Gendry scrambles up and pulls off the rest of his clothes as well. Arya holds her hand out to him.

"Come on," she says, leading him to a door on the side of the room. She pushes it open and he sees that they've entered the captain's chambers. Arya's bedroom.

"Let's see what we can do in a proper bed for once."

They kiss and tumble back onto the bed, both feeling like they're right where they ought to be.


End file.
